Multiple divisions, operating independently, have the potential to disrupt or incapacitate the Pakistani leadership’s decision-making cycle, as happened to the French high command in the face of the German blitzkrieg of 1940. Indian planners believe that when faced with offensive thrusts in as many as eight different sectors, the Pakistani military would be hard-pressed to determine where to concentrate its forces and which lines of advance to oppose.
While this dispersion of effort is seen as an advantage in that it undermines Pakistan's reasons for resorting to nukes by not massing for one offensive that might split and destroy Pakistan, the dispersal of effort means no decisive ground action can be achieved. Far from being hard pressed to determine where to concentrate its forces in the face of dispersed attacks, Pakistan would have the advantage of watching all its frontier forces participate in the battle to deplete India's strike forces, which would each be unable to achieve decisive results.
Why would Pakistan be hard pressed to identify and fight any one of the integrated battle groups? Why would they need to? Pakistan could let their infantry formations on the border absorb the many weak blows (in the same manner that a bed of nails spreads out the force of all those pointy nails to the point that they don't penetrate skin) and attrite and halt the Indians, and then launch their own armored forces in a concentrated counter-attack that would drive into India to hit a pivot corps that has already been involved in trying to break through the frontier defenses for a battle group.
While I understand the need to win on the battlefield before international pressure can compel a halt to fighting, this strategy just aims to quickly fight on a broad front without the capability of winning anything of significance in that quick fight.
In mid-2006, I was horrified that India might be trying to recreate the USSR's bolt from the blue capability against NATO. My initial thinking before that was that Cold Start was a response to the Kargil War in 1999, in that India wanted to be able to quickly seize the initiative in a limited war or militarized dispute that is deliberately kept local to avoid general war yet can be won quickly.
The 2008 paper cited above seems to indicate it is a bizarre combination of both ideas--creating a force capable of carrying out a strategy to strike on a wide front with forces only capable of winning limited engagements on a localized front. But with the twist that the Indians think this dispersed offensive will be decisive.
This violates all military sense in abandoning the concept of massing one's efforts to defeat the enemy. And insisting that this is massing effect rather than troops is hogwash. The Indians will build a bed of nails that will disperse force so much that the Pakistanis will never feel any individual nail, and will instead comfortably stop the Indian offensive and be in the position to mass their own weaker but concentrated mobile forces in a counter-attack.
Having eight division-sized mobile forces ready to go to war quickly will be great for any limited war in which India wants to quickly gain superiority over Pakistani border forces on a narrow front with limited aims, in order to achieve battlefield victory quickly and then press for a settlement and ceasefire rather than leave Pakistani forces holding the terrain in question.
But if it comes to general war, India would be wise to mass those eight mobile divisions into one or two major groupings supporting by the holding corps to actually mass effort to defeat the Pakistani army.
Yes, India must somehow deter Pakistan from using nukes by reassuring Pakistan that offensive operations will end short of destroying Pakistan's army or Pakistan, but that reassurance shouldn't take the form of India's apparent Cold Start Doctrine which by design fritters away India's ground advantage by stretching their mobile army on a wide front.
Germany massed forces in the Ardennes (this should read "armored forces" as Jeff wrote to me, since the bulk of the German's forces overall were not in committed to the Ardennes) in 1940 with a feint further north in Belgium--the Germans did not disperse their armor from the Channel to the Swiss frontier and pretend that was massing effect.
As the paper writes, if operationalized this concept is a recipe for escalating to nuclear war. (Although the idea put forth in the paper that each side might want to deploy "tactical" nukes makes no sense to me since the battlefields lie on Pakistani and Indian territory. Even strikes on military units nuke somebody's homeland, which will not be viewed as tactical hits.) What India sees as minor penetrations of Pakistani territory, Pakistan may very well view as threats to their nation and a general conventional war rather than a limited objective attack.
Thinking they are in a general conventional war is the worst place for Pakistan to be.
Pakistan can compete at the nuclear level since either side could inflict terrible damage on the other side. And Pakistan can compete in a limited conventional conflict--limited either in time or scope--against India's superior conventional capability (not to mention the threat of naval blockade).
While in theory Pakistan could fight a general conventional war if they know it will only last a short time (ending from international pressure before India can gain the edge), it is too risky to fight such a war counting on it to end before they lose. So fighting a war limited in scope (like Kargil in 1999 where 5,000 Pakistani forces held mountain redoubts against about 30,000 Indian troops and paramilitary forces who eventually drove them out) is the only thing that makes sense for Pakistan in a one-on-one fight with India.
Since it makes no sense for Pakistan to provoke an even conflict at the nuclear level or even a general conventional war for a short time, conflict at a local level makes the most sense for them if they want to fight India.
As such, a Cold Start Doctrine for India only makes sense for India as a means to rush a division or two to a local front to quickly defeat a Pakistani armed incursion with lower losses to themselves and with less chance of escalation to nuclear threats by winning faster than in 1999.
NOTE: I accidentally posted this dated yesterday. I fixed the post date.
